Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO RAN
Rosa, the nanny, was in another hospital with a fractured wrist and bruises around her throat.
Bell brought a recorded statement that evening. Lorenzo listened with both hands flat on the table.
Rosa's voice sounded scraped raw.
“Mr. Moretti's office called. They said there was a threat at the penthouse. A driver was coming. I was to take Lucia to a private doctor at the Chatzsworth.”
“Whose voice?” Bell asked on the recording.
“A man. He knew her temperature. He knew what she'd eaten. He knew Mr. Moretti wasn't home.”
The driver had taken them through the hotel's service entrance. In a laundry room, another man told Rosa to hand over the baby.
She refused.
He twisted her arm, grabbed her throat, and threw her into a rolling laundry cart.
She remembered a van. Darkness. Trying to kick the lid. Later, an industrial loading dock where she managed to crawl free and find a night worker.
“What happened to Lucia?” the recorded voice asked.
Nobody in the room answered her.
Lorenzo stood.
“Get me the driver.”
Bell closed the laptop.
“I intend to.”
“I wasn't asking you.”
Elena moved into his path.
“You break somebody's jaw tonight, and tomorrow everybody talks about that. The person who put your baby in garbage gets another day to hide.”
He stared down at her.
“You don't know my world.”
“I know what it does to people smaller than you.”
Nico looked away.
For a long moment, Lorenzo didn't move. Then he sat back down.
Bell asked for household phone logs, staff schedules, and security records.
“You'll have them,” he said.
“All of them.”
His jaw tightened.
“All of them.”
Later, Elena entered Lucia's room and found the baby awake. Weak fingers closed around hers.
“Hey,” she whispered. “You scared me.”
Lorenzo stood in the doorway, watching his daughter hold on to the woman who had nothing to offer but herself.
His phone rang.
Vittorio.
He put it on speaker while adjusting Lucia's blanket.
“Any progress?” his uncle asked.
“A little.”
“Good. And the necklace? Did the girl find it in the wet shawl?”
Elena went cold.
May you like
Nobody had told Vittorio where she had kept the necklace.
More than that, nobody had told him the shawl was wet.
